Effects of Prism Adaption and rTMS on Brain Connectivity and Visual Representation

OBJECTIVES: The ability to efficiently select information from the environment relies on a balanced interaction between the right and left hemispheres. Hemispatial neglect, most frequently following damage to the right hemisphere, has been hypothesized to result from the breakdown of this interhemispheric balance. There is evidence from transcranial stimulation studies that the breakdown of this interhemispheric balance is reflected in fronto-parietal connectivity. The primary goal of this study is to test whether altering the balance between the left and right hemispheres, with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) or prism adaptation (PA), will affect functional connectivity measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We will also explore the relationship between the changes in functional connectivity and behavioral performances. STUDY POPULATION: Healthy adult volunteers and patients with neglect after a right hemisphere damage. DESIGN: The study contains three experiments. Experiment 1 is designed to investigate the mechanism of the changes induced by PA in both resting state functional connectivity in neglect patients and healthy volunteers (a two-arm parallel study). Experiment 2 is designed to investigate the mechanism of the changes in resting state functional connectivity induced by lPA, rPA, nPA in healthy volunteers with right dominant eyes and lPA in healthy volunteer with left dominant eye (a four-arm parallel study). Experiment 3 is designed to see if inhibitory rTMS over the right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) can influence functional connectivity and visuospatial bias in healthy volunteers (a crossover study). OUTCOME MEASURES: For all three experiments the primary outcome measure is the change (or difference) in fronto-parietal resting state connectivity between post and pre PA or rTMS procedure. The secondary outcome measures are the changes in visual field representation and in visuo-motor and cognitive behavior accompanying these manipulations.